Los Angeles residents, no strangers to heat, are broiling as temperatures hit records in a post- summer swelter. Schools canceled recess, firefighters aided heat victims and the public poured onto beaches to cool off.
Yesterday’s peak of 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) in Los Angeles surpassed the previous mark of 112 degrees set on June 26, 1990, Stuart Seto, a specialist with the National Weather Service, said in an interview. It was the hottest day since record-keeping began in 1877.
“There’s hot, and then there’s hot,” said Byron Tyler, a resident walking in Hollywood yesterday after lunch. He shared a photo sent to his cell phone by a friend in the nearby San Fernando Valley whose car dashboard thermometer displayed 121 degrees. “Looking at that I don’t feel so bad.”
The early fall heat wave produced two consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures, according to the Weather Service. Downtown Los Angeles was expected to drop to the mid- to upper- 90s today, Seto said. Valley areas, some of which are within city limits, will remain above 100 until tomorrow.
Los Angeles Police reported one suspected case of heat- related death. Hollywood film editor Sally Menke, 56, was found on a trail in the Hollywood Hills with her black Labrador retriever at her side and was pronounced dead this morning, said Lieutenant Cheryl MacWillie, a coroner’s spokeswoman.
Menke served as editor on films by Quentin Tarantino including “Pulp Fiction,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Kill Bill: Vol. 1” and “Kill Bill: Vol. 2,” according to the Internet Movie Database.
Power Failures
About 15,000 Los Angeles residents were without electricity as of 8 a.m. local time today, according to the Department of Water & Power. The hardest hit areas were Westchester, on L.A.’s west side, with 2,411 customers affected, and Hollywood at 1,730, the DWP said in an e-mailed statement. The utility has about 1.4 million electric customers.
The temperature downtown was 89 degrees at 9:47 a.m. local time, according to the Weather Service.
“We’ve gotten many calls today that are heat related -- heat exhaustion, heat strokes,” Mike Brown, battalion chief at the Los Angeles County Fire Department, said yesterday. “It’s happening all over the map.”
Beaches were busier than usual for a Monday as people sought to cool down, Brown said yesterday. Some motorists didn’t make it. Dispatch calls were running 14 percent higher than on a typical Monday, said Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for AAA Southern California.
Cars Overheat
“We’re averaging 2,000 calls an hour,” Spring said in an interview. “There are a lot of dead batteries because they tend to give up when they’re not in good shape in this kind of weather. Overheated vehicles, where belts and hoses aren’t doing their job.”
Tyler, a 47-year-old independent bookseller, said the unprecedented heat may persuade him to turn on the central air conditioning at home. It would be the first time in more than two years. As others did the same, the city’s DWP advised residents to conserve energy to avoid overtaxing the grid.
“The power system is operating normally,” Carol Tucker, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an interview. “There’s currently no major outages that are heat related.”
The Los Angeles Unified School District canceled athletic events and other outdoor activities, invoking an “extreme caution” policy that is triggered when the temperature reaches 95 degrees or above, said Gayle Pollard-Terry, a spokeswoman.
Late Summer
The 617,000-student district, the nation’s second-largest, will continue the precautions tomorrow, Pollard-Terry said. Parents of elementary-school students are being asked to send their children to school either with a frozen bottle of water or a thermos of cold water, she said.
The heat wave follows a summer that was the second-coolest since at least 1944, according the Weather Service.
The past several days have made up for it, said Brent Toney, a 25-year-old actor who sat with a friend outside a Starbucks, drinking iced coffees to ward off the heat.
“We didn’t have much of a summer before,” Toney said. “Everyone who was complaining then is complaining now that we’re finally getting one.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at mwhite8@bloomberg.net; Nadja Brandt in Los Angeles at nbrandt@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net
http://jodnet.blogspot.com
Yesterday’s peak of 113 degrees Fahrenheit (45 Celsius) in Los Angeles surpassed the previous mark of 112 degrees set on June 26, 1990, Stuart Seto, a specialist with the National Weather Service, said in an interview. It was the hottest day since record-keeping began in 1877.
“There’s hot, and then there’s hot,” said Byron Tyler, a resident walking in Hollywood yesterday after lunch. He shared a photo sent to his cell phone by a friend in the nearby San Fernando Valley whose car dashboard thermometer displayed 121 degrees. “Looking at that I don’t feel so bad.”
The early fall heat wave produced two consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures, according to the Weather Service. Downtown Los Angeles was expected to drop to the mid- to upper- 90s today, Seto said. Valley areas, some of which are within city limits, will remain above 100 until tomorrow.
Los Angeles Police reported one suspected case of heat- related death. Hollywood film editor Sally Menke, 56, was found on a trail in the Hollywood Hills with her black Labrador retriever at her side and was pronounced dead this morning, said Lieutenant Cheryl MacWillie, a coroner’s spokeswoman.
Menke served as editor on films by Quentin Tarantino including “Pulp Fiction,” “Inglourious Basterds,” “Kill Bill: Vol. 1” and “Kill Bill: Vol. 2,” according to the Internet Movie Database.
Power Failures
About 15,000 Los Angeles residents were without electricity as of 8 a.m. local time today, according to the Department of Water & Power. The hardest hit areas were Westchester, on L.A.’s west side, with 2,411 customers affected, and Hollywood at 1,730, the DWP said in an e-mailed statement. The utility has about 1.4 million electric customers.
The temperature downtown was 89 degrees at 9:47 a.m. local time, according to the Weather Service.
“We’ve gotten many calls today that are heat related -- heat exhaustion, heat strokes,” Mike Brown, battalion chief at the Los Angeles County Fire Department, said yesterday. “It’s happening all over the map.”
Beaches were busier than usual for a Monday as people sought to cool down, Brown said yesterday. Some motorists didn’t make it. Dispatch calls were running 14 percent higher than on a typical Monday, said Jeffrey Spring, a spokesman for AAA Southern California.
Cars Overheat
“We’re averaging 2,000 calls an hour,” Spring said in an interview. “There are a lot of dead batteries because they tend to give up when they’re not in good shape in this kind of weather. Overheated vehicles, where belts and hoses aren’t doing their job.”
Tyler, a 47-year-old independent bookseller, said the unprecedented heat may persuade him to turn on the central air conditioning at home. It would be the first time in more than two years. As others did the same, the city’s DWP advised residents to conserve energy to avoid overtaxing the grid.
“The power system is operating normally,” Carol Tucker, a spokeswoman for the department, said in an interview. “There’s currently no major outages that are heat related.”
The Los Angeles Unified School District canceled athletic events and other outdoor activities, invoking an “extreme caution” policy that is triggered when the temperature reaches 95 degrees or above, said Gayle Pollard-Terry, a spokeswoman.
Late Summer
The 617,000-student district, the nation’s second-largest, will continue the precautions tomorrow, Pollard-Terry said. Parents of elementary-school students are being asked to send their children to school either with a frozen bottle of water or a thermos of cold water, she said.
The heat wave follows a summer that was the second-coolest since at least 1944, according the Weather Service.
The past several days have made up for it, said Brent Toney, a 25-year-old actor who sat with a friend outside a Starbucks, drinking iced coffees to ward off the heat.
“We didn’t have much of a summer before,” Toney said. “Everyone who was complaining then is complaining now that we’re finally getting one.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Michael White in Los Angeles at mwhite8@bloomberg.net; Nadja Brandt in Los Angeles at nbrandt@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net
http://jodnet.blogspot.com
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